'Choosing to Rest': Artists redefine femininity and stillness in this showcase

For a few years now, we've been trying to explore what the idea of femininity is. And what does it look like to embody the feminine? When I say feminine, I'm not talking about women alone. I'm talking about the quality of feminine being. Just the presence, the identity, the being in one's self versus the constant action and doing, which is seen as a masculine energy. Through internal deliberation, we arrived at this idea of, can we look at rest as a conscious choice and not something that happens because we are fatigued or because we feel that there is a burnout rather than a deliberate choice on a day-to-day basis’. That's how this idea of rest as a conscious choice comes about. The artists that you see as part of the show, their practise comes from these deliberate pauses. They've deliberately created spaces to listen inwards. And whatever their creation is, it is coming from that inner listening what their inner rhythm demands. All the 13 artists, including two male artists as well, apart from the women artists, have looked at their own life and how their own choices have almost defined what they create and their art practise looks like.

What is interesting is that there is indeed a commonality among all the artists, where rest is more about the stillness, to create space to do that inward journey of listening to oneself. Essentially, creating a space to kind of allow the self to emerge further. All 13 artists have managed to bring their unique perspective to what rest means to them. One of the artists looks at rest as a space for healing while another looks a it as observation. Another artist looks at this theme as bringing in clarity about what they want and therefore making a commitment to that. The commonality, therefore is that they have made room for deliberate pauses while also making room and staying away from not needing external validation and not needing to constantly produce. More than ever, I think now is when we need that pause. To say, ‘hey, I think we've done enough. I think it's time for us to step back and take stock of what's happening around us.’

That's something that we constantly think about, especially as an online platform. When we put up a show, we have elaborate conversations with the artists to understand what something like this means to them, so that we can present their work in a specific context, so that even when audiences who are wanting to see the show, can relate to the artist's thought process much more than what they would otherwise — by just seeing the work and almost trying to find a starting point of how they should be really relating to this whole idea of rest. So, because again, when we look at these certain artists that we have presented, it's very likely that the audience who come in to see the show will be able to relate to at least one or more of the artists as compared to what is happening in their own life, right? And that's what we want to be able to do — that they're able to contextualise their experience while they are experiencing the show. So, after these conversations, we wanted the audience to permit themselves to engage with this idea that we put together. We don't want the audience to come online, look at the exhibition and say ‘great work by the artist.’ We want people to engage with them and resonate with what's happening in their own lives — almost recognise that need for rest in their own life in this context. Therefore, when you, when we go live today, the audience will be able to see those different perspectives that I'm talking about. And I personally feel that online experiences allow audiences to experience it at the pace that they want to. We want audiences to take their own sweet time, probably with a cup of coffee or whenever they're relaxing, read through it, reflect on it.